Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin: A Guide to Chardin’s Paintings

Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin was an eighteenth-century French painter renowned for his still lifes and genre paintings—depictions of domestic scenes and everyday life. His paintings stood in contrast to the Rococo style popular at the time, which prioritized grand historical figures and symbolic meaning. The charm of Chardin’s work lies in his ability to draw attention to the beauty in humble objects and simple domestic activities. His deceptively simple style influenced modernist painters like Cézanne and Morandi.

The son of a cabinetmaker, Chardin was born in Paris on November 2, 1699. As a young man, he served an apprenticeship with history painters Pierre-Jacques Cazes and Noël-Nicolas Coypel. In 1724, Chardin was accepted into the Académie de Saint-Luc, a painter’s guild. Four years later, he submitted The Ray (1728) and The Buffet (1728) to France’s premier art institution, the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture (Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture). He was accepted into the academy, where he became an active member for several decades, befriending other successful painters of the time.

Chardin signed a marriage contract with Marguerite Saintard in 1723, although he didn’t marry her until 1731. Marguerite died only four years later. Chardin continued creating paintings, eventually showing his work at the Salon, a distinguished art exhibition held at the Louvre. Chardin lived on the Left Bank of Paris near the Church of Saint-Sulpice until 1757, when King Louis XV allowed him to live and work in a studio at the Louvre. Chardin entered into his second marriage with a widow named Françoise-Marguerite Pouget, whom he immortalized in a portrait in 1775. Due to his failing eyesight in old age, Chardin adopted a new medium, using soft pastels for his final paintings.

Several characteristics are typical of Chardin’s work:

1. 1. Everyday objects and scenes. Unlike his contemporaries who worked in the Rococo style, Chardin focused on ordinary objects like pitchers, pots, and fruits as well as genre scenes depicting kitchen maids working or children playing.
2. 2. Repeated subjects. Chardin experimented with using the same object in multiple paintings, as with a glass of water in Basket of Wild Strawberries (c.1761) and Water Glass and Jug (c.1760). He also represented human subjects performing the same action in multiple genre paintings—like a boy playing with a stack of cards.
3. 3. Emphasis on the visual, rather than symbolic, meaning. Chardin’s paintings moved away from grand historical gestures imbued with symbolic meaning, encouraging his viewers to appreciate the imagery for its own sake. He skillfully mixed tones and colors to evoke a soft diffusion of light. By using granular impasto techniques, Chardin layered paint to create engaging textures. Additionally, he structured his compositions to create a balanced frame.

Chardin’s most memorable paintings include:

1. 1. The Ray (1728): Arguably Chardin’s most influential painting, this artwork features a gutted rayfish, or skate. The red blood and white muscles of the ray contrast with the fur of a cat on one side and kitchen utensils and a black pitcher on the other side. This painting influenced the French novelist Marcel Proust, who wrote about the artwork, as well as the painter Henri Matisse, who reimagined it in his own version during the early twentieth century. You can see Chardin’s The Ray at the Louvre Museum.
2. 2. Soap Bubbles (c. 1734): Created at the height of Chardin’s popularity, this painting features a young man leaning on a windowsill and blowing a bubble through a straw while a younger boy watches attentively. Soap Bubbles is an excellent example of Chardin’s genre painting, imbuing a seemingly inane activity with careful visual details. Édouard Manet paid homage to this painting with his Boy Blowing Bubbles (1867), emphasizing the impact that Chardin’s work had on modernist painters even a century later.
3. 3. The Silver Goblet (1728): Another of Chardin’s still lifes, this oil-on-canvas painting depicts a glass carafe, assorted fruits, and a silver goblet, an object Chardin used in several paintings throughout his life. The Silver Goblet is notable for the bright colors of the red cherries and orange peaches against the dark background. Chardin used reflections in both the carafe and the goblet to experiment with light and contrast.
4. 4. The Governess (1739): One of Chardin’s genre paintings, this artwork captures a moment between a governess and a young boy. The boy’s badminton equipment and playing cards are scattered on the floor. The governess appears to be quietly reprimanding the boy, who looks ashamed. The painting is striking for the framing of the two figures, one younger and standing, the other older and sitting. The brown and burgundy colors in the painting contrast with the governess’s white dress.
5. 5. Self Portrait with Spectacles (1771): An intimate portrait of the artist, this painting is an example of Chardin’s later pastel work. Chardin portrays himself turning towards the viewer, gazing deeply out of the frame. He wears a blue and white cap and a pink scarf that reflects soft light. The spectacles perched on Chardin’s nose remind the viewer of the painter’s failing eyesight, the impetus for his new medium. Chardin premiered his pastel work at the Salon in 1771, shocking his audience with an unexpected new style.

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